New addition Kassian a 'guy with a lot of passion'

Frédérique Delaprée’s time on Jeopardy! wasn’t going very well. The Ottawa woman had spent most of the game in third place, and the Final Jeopardy category — 19th-century U.S. presidents — wasn’t her forte.

MONTREAL — Even though Matt “Meat and Potatoes” Kassian says his game isn’t that complicated — he’s an old-fashioned, 6-5, 232-pound fourth-line heavyweight — his old pal Guillaume Latendresse insists he’s an open book off the ice.

“He’s a great guy to be around,” said Latendresse, who was texting back and forth with Kassian late Tuesday after the Senators acquired him from the Minnesota Wild for a sixth-round pick in the 2014 NHL entry draft. “I think for the media guys, you’re going to find him funny. He loves everything. He can talk to you guys about whatever you want, every day. ‘Weird’ guy is not the (correct) word … but he’s the guy with a lot of passion.”

Perhaps when Kassian shows up at practice and holds his first scrum with Ottawa reporters Thursday, he’ll offer up some views on new Pope Francis, the shrinking number of candidates in the Liberal leadership race and the sudden sinkhole crisis in the United States. However, when he’s playing — or even when he’s sitting on the bench — the Senators believe he can be a magician, of sorts.

“He’ll make sure our smaller guys get bigger,” said Latendresse, who played alongside Kassian in Minnesota.

With Kassian around, Chris Neil and Zack Smith don’t necessarily have to fight every Tom, Dick and Harry (Zolnierczyk) whose goal is to antagonize the Senators’ highest-skilled players.

“It’s only going to help,” Smith said. “With guys like me and Neil, if we play more minutes, it’s hard to justify fighting some of the ‘fourth-line’ guys that don’t play a lot of minutes. He’s obviously a tough kid, he’s a Western kid (Kassian is from Edmonton), so that’s a given. I played against him a couple of years in the Western Hockey League.”

For clarity purposes, Kassian is 26 and Smith is 24.

Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson said he’s not all that familiar with the newcomer, but has received solid reports from Latendresse. Alfredsson even joked that Kassian could help the Senators reduce their penalty-minute totals.

“I’m sure he doesn’t wear a visor, so he’ll fit in pretty well,” he said, referring to the additional 12 minutes in penalties both Chris Phillips and Patrick Wiercioch received in recent games for fighting with a half-shield attached to their helmets.

Senators coach Paul MacLean acknowledges the team needed to fill a hole left by the departures of Matt Carkner and Zenon Konopka to free agency last summer. Ironically, Konopka now plays for Minnesota.

“We added an element to our team that we feel is really important,” MacLean said. “We’re looking forward to getting Matt (with the team Thursday) and into the lineup as soon as possible.”

THINK BEFORE YOU TWEET

Robin Lehner engaged in some good-natured tweeting with Senators fans while riding the train from Ottawa to Montreal on Tuesday, but he says he’s had to learn about the power — and dangers — of social media.

“It’s always fun, but it has also been hard for me, too,” said Lehner, who received a fair share of criticism for his brutal honesty and hot temper in his first couple of years as a pro. “When I started out with Twitter in my first year, I enjoyed it. But in the last year or so, I’ve got to sit down and every tweet that I want to send out, I have to delete half of it. It’s hard to get on a roll with it, when you’re kind of in the middle — when you’re not quite established and you’re trying to get established — and you don’t want to say something that’s not appropriate.

“Like, sometimes if I’m thinking in Swedish and I wouldn’t know if the sarcasm (works in English). I don’t want to do too much to destroy any chance of getting a chance. (On Tuesday), I had some fun, but the media (relations) guys were with us, too, so I got a lot of help.”

LAST SHOT WINS

Before Wednesday’s game, the Senators had been involved in nine consecutive one-goal games ­ compiling a 4-2-3 record — tying the Columbus Blue Jackets for the longest streak this season.

“For fans or coaches, I think, it’s pretty stressful,” Smith said. “It’s no secret that we haven’t scored a lot of goals and our goaltending has been great, but we’ve found ways (to win). It would be nice to get a few more and not worry about going to a shootout or overtime every game.”

The Senators still have a ways to go to set any kind of record in that regard. In 1997-98, the Chicago Blackhawks established the mark for going 12 straight games that were decided by either one goal or ended up tied, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. (The shootout was introduced in 2005 to break ties). The single-season record for most one-goal and tie games is 54, established by the Edmonton Oilers in 1999-2000.

THE STAMP OF APPROVAL

Alfredsson claims he’s not offended in the least that Sweden bypassed him in their plans to celebrate the world championships this spring by issuing postage stamps honouring hockey greats Nicklas Lidstrom, Borje Salming, Henrik Lundqvist and somebody named Jorgen Jonsson. (Jonsson played only 81 games in the NHL with Anaheim and the New York Islanders, but he had an impressive career in Sweden and representing the country internationally).

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